President's plan is misleading

Posted: Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The president has put forward a plan to run yet another part of our lives. This time he has proposed to have government run our health-care system, delving into the highly personal decisions of choice of provider, as well as quality of care. His assurances that a government-run plan would strengthen our current system while driving down costs are simply not the case.

The president claims that patients will be able to keep their choice of provider under his plan. That is not reality. Independent analyses have concluded that millions of Americans will lose their private coverage once a government-run plan is introduced to the market place.

Recently the president himself admitted that there is nothing in his plan that would prevent employers from dropping the health coverage they currently offer when faced with unfair competition from a government-run plan. The president should level with the American people on this crucial point.

The president's promise that care will be strengthened under his plan is also misleading. As more of the population is forced onto the government-run plan, bureaucrats in Washington will have no choice but to ration care and mandate what they consider "best practices" to try and keep costs down.

And the president's plan will do nothing to lower costs. It will actually drive costs up. The initial price tag for the president's plan is somewhere between $1 and $2 trillion.

The president and Democrats in Congress are considering proposals that will substantially increase taxes on small businesses and the middle class, and implement cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Everyone knows that interjecting government control has never led to lower costs. Quite the opposite.

Your readers should carefully consider the implications of allowing the government to control this very personal part of our lives.